Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Black Dice

The first time I saw Black Dice was at Punks with Presses in Oakland (apparently on January 3rd, 1999 -- almost exactly a decade ago). When I met Eric later and spoke to him of it he referred to that particular night as the "danger show". This was during their confrontation period, and the punks in Oakland were having none of it. I believe I witnessed a bottle of anti-freeze being hurled at Bjorn, striking him square in the head.

There was a time when Black Dice was the hot shit in town. I went to every show they played. You can see me in a few (somewhat) famous pictures taken by Señor Jeff Winterberg from the show they played with Erase Errata at The Den (the basement to Two Boots on Avenue A, where they had a few amazing shows in the year 2001) in his awesome book, Rat A Tat Tat Birds. I am proud to say that my good friend Justin Bastow also attended that show, but he didn't make any of the photos as he was standing in the back. He generally is not a fan of this sort of music, but even he found some of the dissonance and feedback frequencies "interesting". I was just happy that he found something to like.

Black Dice were especially fun to see for a time as people came to their shows who didn't actually like them, probably because it was a fashionable place to be. It was hilarious to see the place start to clear out when they began, and to see the looks on peoples' faces as they were exiting. Gold!

I used to see these dudes more frequently, but as I do not I will take this opportunity to send well wishes to Aaron (whom I actually met in 1997 when The Angel Assassins played with T Tauri), Bjorn, and Eric. Although Hisham no longer plays in the band, he played on these records and as he is my buddy I would also like to extend a hearty hello to him as well!

5 comments:

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